The Evolution of an Arrogator
by lamb of odd
Summary: Gather 'round, gather 'round, and hear the tragic tale of Finnek "Finny" Vomin, Warlord of the Horde! From his pitiful beginning as a hunter in the bog, to the chef of an orcish frigate, the leader of a troll killing band, killer of a Demi-God, Commander at Mount Hyjal, and finally war-criminal. This is a tale, not of adventure, but evolution. Better detail on the story inside.


Preface: Dear gentle reader, this yarn was spun during the summer of 2012 as a back story to a character I was role-playing; posted on a forum private to my guild's members. That Guild is now dissolved, and I quit playing World o' Warcraft after the radical dumbing-down of the game, and the brutal pillaging of both the lore and whatever seriousness I once found in the universe. Ashes to Ashes. You may notice that it is incomplete: this is due to the accidental deletion of the latter-half, which I considered the finer half. If enough people enjoy the story, I could be persuaded to re-write it (but don't get your hopes up). Anywho, it is my mild pleasure to present...

The Evolution of an Arrogator

Extroversion

The viscous morass clung viciously to the half-dead trees, sloshing against them with the passing of the familiar reptile or amphibian. The heat beat down on the tree-tops, which invited it to stagnate and swirl about the discouraging swamp. But nature's ardor did not persecute its regulars; the blackbird or the crocolisk, and not even its immigrants: the olive skinned rat-men that trudged through the mire, their hairy knuckles turned white from clenching the triggers of poorly-made rifles. Goblins, they're called. At their head, a younger but not particularly taller droop-eared fellow holding a crossbow; barking orders in a hissing, guttural dialect of orcish that one might mistake for the fauna of the bubbling hell, "Sssikner, where di't you sssay you hear't the noise?" He was referring to the clinking clatter that had pierced the menagerie of calls and clomps that had ensnared the marshland for a day or so, which had somehow disturbed the pernickety pack of humanoids. "T'eh the nort' o' the village, aroun't the t'icker part o' the fourt' swampfly nessst." Sikner replied, dully. The pack-leader replied with a stiff nod, and continued the search.

The youthful frontrunner was no normal sprite, however. He was unique amongst the backwards clan of rodentfolk that denied the advancement of time. He was the avant-gardist, the innovator, the great modernizer that organized the unkempt tribe and raised their existence above the bog; even if this came in the form of travelling out to a human settlement for books, reinforcing their huts against sinking, or teaching his kin to contrive a proper hunting trap or fishing pole. But with all who are fit to lead, he does not. Partially because it was the elderly who thought themselves wisest among the lot, but mostly out of his jadedness. He couldn't be blamed for this fault, really; the oppressive atmosphere of the quagmire bred the sort of stoicism. Not to mention his unfortunate, laughable name: Finnek Vomin.

Clink-clink-clink. The troop froze in their tracks. Clink-clink-clink. Their eyes shoot to one-another. Clink-clink-clink. One begins to speak, but Finnek brings a bony finger to his lips. Clink-clink-clink. They creep in the racket's general direction, sluggish to conceal their own noise, but hurriedly just the same. The drove of hominids traversed the mire as only experts could, following the sound until they stood at its brink. Finnek turned behind to reassure his party of their quarry's position, before dividing a mass of tangled foliage to reveal a lone human, leading a line of three orc slaves behind him; their chains clinking away. Vomin turned once more to tell his group to look, but realized they had already gathered 'round. Shaking his head, he returned to the vigil to find the slaver punishing a piece of his merchandise. Hard. Erknin, the youngest and least experienced of the force, was clamping his rifle, acid in his gaze. You see, Erky's corpulent mother wasn't of the motherly variety, constantly rapping away at her pup's head, a treatment the orcs were feeling the full heat of at the moment. Vomin, clever gentleman that he is, can see what is about to happen. He reaches for his companion's shoulder. Erknin flinches. There's a pool of blood around the human's corpse; and six orcish eyes are on Finnek.

Departure

"We'll have these chainsss picke't off when we get back t'eh the village." Finnek Vomin was comforting the upset orcs, mistaking their raw exhilaration for fear, as his companions were scolding Erky for his wanton ghost-making. If Finnek were akin to his kin, he'd be doing the same; but young Vomin was never much of an authoritarian (if he were, these orcs would've been on their own). "Jussst over that ridge, t'ere." The great green gremlins nodded their heads concurrently, grateful to their miniature savior. One queries, "Swobu, goblin-friend; but I wonder how you speak our tongue?" This orc seemed a tad proactive to Vomin; from what he's seen of the orcs, they were lethargic and indifferent. Of course, those orcs weren't about to drop their chains. "Well, my gran't fa'ter used t'eh live in the Black Morasss, back when it wasss still a morasss. One day you orcsss show't up an't snatched him n' gramma up. You see were I'm goin'k, here?" The orcs grew sullen at this, something Finnek didn't really understand. "That is… sad, friend." Finnek still didn't grasp their grief, but bit back a snicker at the irony of their position. "Don't beat yourself up, frien'tsss. Besidesss, we're here." The head-goblin grabbed a branch, planted his foot on a large rock, and scrambled up a muddy foothill. His cohorts followed swiftly, and they stood at the edge of pity itself.

The settlement was utterly and truly sad. Huts raised of decaying wood, their bases secured by two layers of rock. In the center of the community, the smallest bonfire you could imagine. There was nothing humorous about this deplorable state of living; not even the most ancient of cynics could feel justified, as pity would plug every sense they had. It would almost seem that the abject reality were the product of stupidity, and not the incomprehensible laziness that only goblins could accomplish. This was the general sentiment of the party as they entered the village, being swarmed by several rotund, even bovine, goblin women. "Finny! Finny! What's these bi'k damn thin'ks you brought he-uh?!" They screamed, feigning fear so their mates might defend them against a non-existent threat. Finnek, the only individual with a tangible taste in women, was being poked and prodded by the repulsive ladyfolk. "Get your han'tsss off of me you fat frakkin-" He raised his crossbow as if it were a pickaxe and their heads were precious metal . They backed away, being shooed by Vomin's camaraderie (which was mostly comprised of their husbands). As Finnek waved for Dattin, a roguish and mostly unskilled individual, to pick the silent orcs' chains, a particularly obese and elder woman came sauntering out of a shack; her voice lower than the other ladies'. "Finny! My boy give you any trouble? If he di't, you just say the word n' I'll beat his-" Vomin interrupted, "Erky's performance wasss… Impressive for someone hisss-" and was, in turn, interrupted by Sikner, "Your damn ki't nearly got us all kill't!" Erknin's eyes shot to the floor and Finnek scowled at Sikner. Erky was getting dragged off and scolded a few moments later, and Vomin's hunting party dispersed.

The trio of orcs, a bit more talkative now that the village had retreated into their huts, rubbed their wrists (as was the tradition amongst newly freed prisoners). Finnek whispered something in Dattin's bat-esque ear, to which, the scoundrel nodded and handed over his two daggers. Dattin retreated and Vomin turned to the orcs, "An't you say they're gatherin'k in the West?" The triad raised their brows, "You're coming?" Finnek wrinkled his forehead, as if musing to himself, before retorting-"Doesss it look like I have anythin'k to lose?" His larger, emerald cousins smirked understandingly, and the goblin jerked his head westward. "S'go."

Travel

Deadwind Pass. A dead land for a dead man. Lightning flashes and clouds swirl above dead trees holding corpses by rope. Nature has abandoned this dead chasm, along with most life; save for hulking masses of revolting meat-beings called Ogres, but even their existence is countered by the un-living: ghouls, shuffling carcasses, and every manner of foul spectre to dance about your nightmares. The difficulty of crossing this land would only be enhanced by the humans chasing down the orcs and their guide.

That's why they cut through Redridge into Duskwood.

Their covert movements had taken them to a ditch at the threshold of Westfall, with one of the orcs drawing a line in a patch of exposed dirt. "If the caravan was here when we saw it, it'll be travelling this road. It ought to be here in twenty minutes or so. We sic our hounds-" He was referring to four redridge coyotes they had been training for the three day trek," on the first mule, while we take rocks on that hill-" He points across to a cliff-like rise adjacent to the road, "and bombard the weaklings." The other three travelers were carefully studying the plan. Vomin, who had yet to realize that they plotted to slay the humans, suggested, "Why don't we just pile the rocksss between the ridge an't this ditch, then sen't the houn'ts to flank them from behin't?" The orcs took a surprised gaze at one another, then their escort, "Have you ever done this before Finnek?" The goblin shrugged, and took toward the hill. They were stacking the stones not long after.

Across the three or so days, the four allies had grown, at least somewhat, accustomed to one-another's mannerisms and habits. For instance: Ruk, the greenest (least knowledgeable), of the orcs would sometimes go to picking his crooked teeth, becoming distracted and lagging behind; or how Grikni was disposed to tripping. Of course, the orcfolk weren't the only members of the flock with their quirks. The youthful Vomin would often day-dream, his eyes glazing over as thick thoughts churn about his mind, clouding his cognizance. This was not necessarily irritating, but took a moment to acquiesce. Westfall is cold today. Actually, it's morning time. These things don't really matter to the pack, they're too hungry to care. They were ill-prepared from the get-go, and Vomin knew it. He thinks he should've packed some sustenance. That's what he was day-dreaming about: how he could've handled the departure. How he could've said goodbye. If he cared enough to talk about them, he would say he hated everyone in that village. And, really, he did; but they were all he knew, save the humans who sold him books. Or the people in those books. There's a mule coming down the road. Finny tells Grikni to get on the hill with him. Ruk and Lomm get in the ditch. This humans are going to be running pretty fast, Finny thinks.

They didn't get a chance to.

Finnek doesn't really understand what just happened. There's a nip in the air; he knows that much. That, and the suns out. The donkey just stopped screaming, but that didn't stop the women. The dogs are taking care of that, though. Vomin thinks he sees an eye next to that rock. No, that's just a smaller rock; but there's a tooth. He can tell because of the blood. Finny feels like he's about to be sick. He hears his buddies laughing. He doesn't want to know why, but he looks anyway. They're kicking the piss out of a farmer. Little Finny Vomin gets a bad taste in his mouth. He brings his crossbow up to ease the poor man's pain. He closes his eyes; blocks out the screams. He doesn't open for long time. He does, after a while. Finny doesn't think he'll eat tonight.

Arrival

Well, they're here. Throngs of orcs barking jubilantly, exuberantly swaying with every movement of the messianic figure dictating their future. Grikni called him Thrall. The night sky was illuminated by the torches held by these bulky green beast-men, which were outshined by the gleaming fires in their eyes. Finnek, standing in the center of these dwarfing things, would be surprised by the bustle of the once indifferent orcs, but he couldn't be farther away from this show of the orcish horde's nationalism. He was reliving that one morning's bloody display of rebellion. Words like rip, tear, and pop were being tossed about the goblin's mind as he futilely attempted to describe the horrific scene off as some kind of fabrication of his imagination, that it was far less brutal than what he unknowingly engineered it to be. He feels guilty. He feels guilty because he knows that IS guilty. It shouldn't have been that way.

The multitude shifted forward, snapping Finny out of his dream. He did his best to find out why, but his height presented an obvious obstacle. He would come to realize that the massive gathering was being loaded onto hulking ships. Why? Vomin didn't know. A pleasure cruise? Finnek didn't care. Mass suicide in the maelstrom? Finny couldn't give less of a damn. Grikni and his crew had been separated from the goblin; and Finnek couldn't have been gladder. They were slaves, sure. He was sure they took their fair share of beatings. He was sure they had friends that died. But that was no reason to take it out on a farmer and his mule. His family. And then have the audacity to eat every scrap of food they pillaged like damn animals. Finny was coming up to a ship now. All the orcs were pretty happy about it.

Finnek could at least rest, now. They were all sitting on long benches in the undercroft, one long oar to each row. Vomin, sitting on the end, knew that his stature would prevent him from being of much help when it came time to row. He probably would've just pretended to, anyway. The orcs were all chattering about whatever it was orcs discussed. Eating pigs and punching lions to death, Finny mused. The goblin's thought were torn in two by a particularly meek orc sitting next to him. "Isn't it exciting, brother? To have a homeland of our own! Where all orcs are as one, equal! Throm-ka Lohn'goron!" Finny normally would've told him to calm down, but there was something special about this orc. He called him "brother". Now, Finny didn't really have any brothers of his own; and he didn't know his parents, save for stories his dim-witted cousins would tell him. Finnek wasn't sure why that word meant so much to him, but it did. Maybe orcs aren't all so bad, he thought. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to greet a skull-helmet with an orc's voice. "Brother-goblin! Do you know how to cook?" With a smirk, "'Courssse I can cook."

He was lying.

Exodus

It's hard picking berries on a day like this. Well, night like this. Finnek wasn't too sure what time it was. The air was moist, and the mist was suffocating. These things, coupled with the tough linen potato-sack shirt Finny had to fashion (the salty ocean air rotted the old drab right off his back) would've had him run-through for sheer complaining. It would have, but it was too serene here. Too quite. See, Finny was picking berries for himself because the fish wasn't really agreeing with him, and you could only have so much clam chowder before you tossed it overboard. He had access to such a free selection of food because he was the cook, of course. Not a very good cook, but he was doing pretty well for someone with only a week-and-a-half's worth of experience. Almost two weeks here at sea, and they still haven't found what they're looking for. Orcs aren't very good navigators, Finny decided. Why were they on these islands, anyway? The head orcs were pretty upset about it. Finny's picked quite a few berries, now, and he thinks he'll head back to the forward camp when he hears a multitude of something trampling down his way. He sees an orc in black armor riding his wolf like nobody's business. Behind him, a clambering throng of trolls (Finnek had already spoke with some of the blue-skinned tribals back at camp); but what are they running from? The smell hits Finny before he sees them.

Repulsive fish-men of every color and variety, their murky organs churning and writhing under translucent, smarmy skin. Their opaque, charcoal eyes piercing every piece of you; barbed harpoons penetrating your very consciousness, spreading their disgusting visage across your psyche like a dark-green disease. Their every feature tells you to be gone and vanish from this place; to gouge out every thought of their existence. A metal-tipped bolt plants itself in one of their hearts, sending a revolting reverberation through its thin-cut hide; making a foul, oily concoction of water and slime spurting forward. This shot was fired by the crossbow of a creature absconding, reloading his death-device as he does. They just look like big damn swamp frogs to Finny. That's the one thing that his kin taught him—to never fear anything he could outwit or shoot.

Mister Finnek Vomin feared very little.

He's finished reloading now, he swings around- Schwing! Another fish-thing drops. The youthful Vomin begins to get a tad egotistical; he starts running backward, flips off the ugly wretches. Chuckles and starts yelling for them to kiss his sweet olive green- Tree to the face. Finnek doesn't really think about what just knocked him on his backside, he just reacts. Reacts to the stumbling horde of death behind him. Two daggers spring from their sheaths, gripped tight by a three-foot-tall rat-man with adrenaline dictating every motion. His blades go to work, the amphibious terrors already upon him. If Finny had time to think about what was going down, he would've been too pissed at the still flying trolls to fight. Just as these things start to run through his mind, a spear pierces a soft skull and adds to the pile of fishy corpses Finnek had been working on. The trolls came back.

Flight

"Fall back", "Let's go", and "Mrglgrglrglurglrglmrgle" were some of the noises being thrown about the small camp as the clusters of orcs, trolls, and fish-men thrashed against one another in an attempt to escape, and kill those escaping. Standing on an elevated rock amongst the ocean of frantic folk, desperate to secure their properties and livestock, is a squat figure picking off the vile sea-dwellers. Schwing! A fish-thing drops. Why'd they even bring all that, Finnek wonders, they obviously weren't going to be staying here long. Pigs and wolves and chickens and… There weren't any raptors on the ships. Must belong to the trolls. Schwing! There goes another. The trolls ride in style, Finny thinks. He might learn to ride one of those, sooner or later. A few orcs break from the sprawl, start heading for the ships (which were about five-hundred yards north-west of the tiny camp), a few orcs to a wolf. This trend goes over well with the others, who follow the trail. Schwing! One more dead… It has just occurred to Finny that he's seen these things before—murlocs, they're called. Finny can still remember the day he first saw them. See he and Sikner were fishing for- "Let's go, mon!" Three fingers grab Finnek by the burlap collar, heaving him onto the saddle of a raptor. There's a troll steering its eclectic, hurried movements toward the ships; and another hanging from the side, throwing hatchets.

Vomin is a shrewd fellow, and it doesn't take long for him to adapt to this new firing position. His shots were sporadic compared to the troll's rapid throwing, but every one of the goblin's shots were legitimate kills (something the troll couldn't boast, as his axes were only slowing them down.) Energy was pumping through every one of Finnek's veins, but there was an odd harmony in the repetition. The quick, concise motions of reloading, aiming, pulling the trigger, reloading, aiming, pulling the trigger. The wind was a little quieter, now. The raptor didn't seem to tremor with each footstep, anymore. The murloc multitude's screams sounded farther away. Almost the distance of the camp, which had become considerable. He could make out the remains of the settlement; swine lay broken and bleeding, adjacent to equally injured fowl. There are even some peons who didn't make it out. Is that a blue peon? No… and it's too small to be a troll. Finny's stumped. Must be a pretty small troll, he jests to himself. He's smirks, but it disappears when the truth dawns on him. A couple fish-men are kicking the corpse. Finny starts breathing pretty hard, and the fish-men grow green skin. They keep kicking it, each assault more painful than the last. One of the green beasts delivers a blow to its head, and it twitches a little. Orcs feet aren't that floppy though, Finny thinks, and reality comes rushing back. He's breathing even harder than before, now; not because he's scared, but because he's so damn angry. Angry at the murlocs.

He can't do anything about it, though.

He couldn't do anything because they were already scrambling to load onto the boats; the fish-men had given up the chase. Finnek and his two new buddies were some of the last to get in, and then the warships lurched forward, eager to leave the cursed islands as a storm began to swirl overhead. Mister Vomin didn't care, he sauntered up to the deck all the same. The goblin took a seat on a set of stairs up to the quarter-deck. The rain set in, and Finny put his head in his hands and stopped. Just stopped. Stopped thinking, moving, caring. He stilled everything but his breath. He focuses on it. "Damn," he thinks, "I dropped the fackin' berriesss."

Establishment

Kalimdor, the newly founded homeland of the orcish Horde. A stunning land of diversity and depth, from the snow-capped peaks of the North to the desert hells of the South. But Kalimdor was not all beauty, oh no, she was just as unforgiving; death stalked this land like the depraved predator that it is, mercilessly. Great lizard-things with hide plated like armor would often manifest their ire as wicked lighting, as winged lion-scorpion beasts glided overhead and shrieked like dying women. Those being only two of the broad range of freakish fauna that inhabit Kalimdor. The land itself was just as soon to kill you as it was to grow your crops. Freezing tundras, sweltering deserts, suffocating swampland, coupled with beautiful plains, magnificent mountain ranges, and more potential than could be found on any other continent. This is a place of thorough duality: Prosperity and death.

Death.

That word has a special kind of gravity, Finny thinks as he boils lobster for the peons. Finnek, for one, was glad he could visit death upon these revolting things. If only he didn't have to touch them. Truly the cockroach of the sea, the diminutive cook thought as the said crustaceans squealed in the scolding water. It was so irritating, the screams of these damn lobsters. Finny probably would've done the same, if he were a lobster; but when you've been at this for seven hours straight, it starts to get on your nerves. Seven hours of butchering these lobsters just because the peons couldn't hunt for them damned selves. And for what in return? Nothing, save this roasting slop-house. And they didn't even build it right! They just took three canoe-frames, planted them in the ground, and wrapped some hide around them. You'd think that of Thrall's workers, but this was Grom's half of the Horde. Finnek just can't get his mind off the lazy invalids. The lobster in the third pot's finished, but that just means another wailing crustacean. After he tosses the cooked sea-bug in its respectful basket, he picks up a live one. It thrashes about in his grasp, its little insect-esque legs moving just as fast it can muster, as if it doesn't want to die. "Now there'sss a novel thought!" The goblin sneers as he callously drops the lobster it the boiling bowl of bereavement.

This is tiring work. Finny dabs a rag on his forehead, sopping up the sweat as he decides it's time for some fresh air. He ambles over to the flap that served as his doorway (a by-product of the laborers' lethargy, as Finnek would have you believe) and slides through it. Dusk was setting down on Kalimdor; that's probably why Finny was so drained. Finnek can see two familiar trolls sauntering toward his hut on the shore, about fifty yards away from the main settlement. Finny recognizes these slender beings as Taz'ji and Sapin: the trolls, with which, he shared a raptor on the lost isles. They had become quick cohorts of Finny, as hard times like these often demand, and kindly informed him of why exactly this massive Horde was formed. Finnek grasped it all quickly, and was naturally skeptical; but he couldn't deny that they were, in fact, standing on a previously unknown western continent. "'Ey! Finny! Mon, we gotta talk to you!" They jogged up to their chum, "What isss it?"

'Y'know how d'ey spotted humans Eastern-way, mon?"

"Yeh."

"Y'know how d'ey are wreckin' up d'eir towns?" The two trolls alternated speaking.

"Yeh."

"Did ya know d'ey ain't takin' none da loot?" Sapin smirked slyly, Finnek replying with his own devious grin as he tore off the cook apron.

Plunder

The reek of burnt corpse was heavy and thick on the night air, the stench of once-life defiant even after the end. Finnek wasn't particularly bothered by this, as that particular evening had him inhaling a foul combination of his own perspiration and the tears of despondent shell-fish. At any rate, it was more than grating to the two trolls and Thrasher, the pack-raptor they brought with them. "We're 'bout here." By 'here', Taz'ji meant the sacked human settlement; and he was right, they were upon it. The triad had covertly traversed a forest, before passing through a tall patch of grass to find a stack of smoke originating from a pile of flaming corpses. Human corpses.

Finny could feel a knot in his stomach, but turned his gaze from the display of brutality to fight it. He brought his eyes back to the town but deliberately avoided looking to the mass-grave. The trolls appeared to be doing the same, but with a less profuse aversion to the carcasses. "See anyone?" Finny spoke, his voice a tad high. "Not from here." The three stood, stagnant as pond-water for a time, until the shortest of the trio spoke, "Guesss we'll get to it, then." And with that, they set off to their ignoble profiteering of the war.

The work was grim, the orcs not actually caring enough to clean out every house of corpses, but the spoils of the exploitation were sweet and abundant. Wine, sweets, fruit, jewelry, fine food, and gold; Finny even snatched up some reading material, though most of it was on wars and battles and such. The three eventually regrouped in the forest, none of them meeting opposition during their pilfering. They ate themselves full, sang themselves merry, and drank themselves heavy-eyed. There was much rejoicing.

Conscription

The metal tip of a leather boot was the cold awakening visited upon Finnek, the thick haze in his eyes dispersing. "Up, rodent! Up!" Taz'ji and Sapin were getting slammed against trees, their hands forcibly clasped together by thick, coarse rope; the kind you would use to tether ripe swine to posts. "Up, whelp!" The spoils of their midnight exploits were torn from the raptor (now being bound by callous trolls) and hauled away by the dimwitted peons. Finnek was really starting to hate those peons. "I said up!" A hard lump of pig-hide and iron struck Finny in the gut, yanking him out of his daze and at the feet of a particularly livid orc. "Yeh, yeh; I'm getting'k u-"Another swift kick was delivered to his shoulder, knocking his back against the tree he passed out under. He was up. "What the fack are ye-" A cloth sack was harshly set over the goblin's head, and with the familiar orcish inflection, "Shut up, and keep your head down." Finny's hands were bound and the three prisoners were marched away, the hammering feet of Thrasher not far behind.

Nakgrek was a nasty bastard. Even back on the boat, there were stories about him. Stories about how he tossed his chains by taking his slaver by the head and slamming his teeth into the lock until it came undone. Stories about how he took the blood of a human soldier and boiled it so hot that he ignited hay with it; then, he took that hay and rammed it down a nobleman's throat-stories say that the nobleman's insides combusted and Nakgrek threw the fiery human into an orphanage. By all accounts, Nakgrek was a grade-A, one-hundred percent, full-on hard ass. Worked peons to the bone and grunts to the death. Even Grom thought old Nak was tough, and Finny had the honor of sitting directly in front of the Warlord himself. "Dishonorable whelp, taking the spoils of battles fought so you and your ilk could live another day! Pillaging what we raided!" If Mister Vomin were a lesser, less hung-over man, he would've been reduced to a shivering mess by now. But he wasn't. "Well, maybe if ha't you finished the job you starte't, maybe we wouldn't of been so tempte't." If Finny could focus on something other than the thumping vein in Nakgrek's thick neck, he would've noticed how incredibly pissed the warlord had just become. "You insolent, puny runt! I should tear your bowels out ram them down your throat! You scrawny droop eared fu-" This general train of thought followed Nakgrek for some time, as Vomin contemplated how best to keep the warlord from realizing that he and his comrades were also deserters. Finny wondered if Nak was born with his neck like that. Maybe it was something his mother fed him. "Well, whelp?! Did you hear me?! Are you their leader?!" The warlord had become slightly less irate, but retained great volume in his voice. "Huh? Lea'te-" Finny was a little confused. "Then it's settled. You keep my headhunters in line, and I keep your spine aligned. I try to tell them what to do, but they just snicker behind my back." The warlord balled a fist, and Finnek was still in the dark. "If my orcs could shoot worth a damn… Ooh…" There was a long pause as the two looked at the meaty paw. "Are you still here?! Get to your post, Stone Guard!"

Stone Guard

Ten Troll Headhunters

Finny was just sitting there. Sitting in a foot deep trench with a mess of trolls, all discreet and sound asleep. They're lucky, Finnek thinks. He woke up not too long ago and couldn't fall back into the blissful slumber that enveloped his soldiers. His soldiers. Finny still couldn't grasp the enormity of commanding a troop so small. Sure, they just sat around joking the first day, but Finny knew that the war hadn't up and left. Soon, he'd feel all their eyes on him, looking for leadership. Looking for something Finnek knew he didn't have in him. He hoped they'd all just know what to do, or that his superiors would just have every order written up for him; but this is the Horde we're talking about. The orcs would just sit tall on their wolves and expect him to say "go here" and "kill this" and for the trolls to do everything he said like good little boys and girls. Finny thought ahead, though. He told them yesterday that they'd get five gold pieces for every ear they brought back to him. Fin didn't think far enough to know where he'd get the gold. Or how he'd have to count the ears.

The troll lying next to the newly ordained officer starts to shiver, clutching his longbow close to his chest as if it'll make the night any warmer. Finny looks around at the congregation, all somnolent and shifting from time to time. He puts his head in his hands. You don't know true isolation until you're surrounded. The wind howls, and the leaves rustle animate as the grass spins it's sad yarn. Finny thinks he hears a cricket. The troll starts trembling again. Finnek thinks the headhunters should worn thicker clothes. He's got a nice new tabard to keep him warm. Orc women made it for him. Finny never thought orcish ladies as the type to knit and sew, but orcs wouldn't have clothes otherwise. Finnek leans his head back on the ridge of soil. Maybe he would read himself to sleep; he'd finished all the tomes they'd looted, but some blind shaman wrote about orcish mythology (or whatever you call orc beliefs) and most officers were reading it. 'Course, most officers were orcs. He starts reading, but it only makes his eye-lids lighter. He'd stopped where the book started on how a warrior must defend his home and crush his enemies and a whole bunch of other junk that isn't going to help him. It gets harder to sleep because he remembers why they're out here. They're going to attack to attack the humans that have been molesting their resource caravans for the past week. Probably the same ones that the orcs slaughtered the night Taz'ji, Sapin, and he went plundering. Taz'ji and Sapin had also been drafted into the conflict, into Finnek's own tro- Something just shifted against the skyline.

A lot of something.


End file.
